Call and response antiphonal pop songs

You, then you.

call and responseOne of my oldest friends, Carol in Texas, wrote: In your thousands of blog posts you may have covered this, but I’m wondering what your favorite call and response songs are. 

We happened to be listening to classic vinyl on Sirius radio when they played Pinball Wizard. I hadn’t recalled that it included that lyric “how do you think he does it’… ‘I don’t know.'” Led me to wonder what other songs with that device I love and the obvious With a Little Help from My Friends popped up, and Jefferson Starship’s  Miracles, sort of, and… such fun, especially when you sing along.

Well, Carol, I had NOT put together a list of pop songs with call and response. I started going down a rabbit hole in noting that what is called the antiphon existed in 5th century Christianity. Classical composers as early as Handel and Bach used it. In jazz, the call and response might be instrumental.

Antiphony

“The looser term antiphony is generally used for any call and response style of singing, such as the kirtan or the sea shanty and other work songs, and songs and worship in African and African-American culture.” I even found a dissertation on antiphony in hip hop. I associate it with both children’s songs, and Marines running and responding to the drill sergeant’s chants.

Any time the singer in a band asks the audience to echo what they sing, that’s antiphony. Think Freddie Mercury of Queen at Wembley Stadium. There’s a scene in One Night in Miami, where Sam Cooke is leading the audience in antiphony.

It is interesting that you noted Pinball Wizard. One of the most referenced antiphonies I found was another Who song, My Generation. Now, the FIRST piece I thought of was part 2 of What’d I Say by Ray Charles.

I was always fond of the bit by Diana Ross and the Supremes in Love Child. Most of the time the lyric by the backup singers, the Andantes would echo Diana. But in one case they had lyrics that propelled the message:
Love child, never meant to be
Love child, (scorned by) society

Songs

Here are some more, by no means a complete list, because there are zillions of them. Some of my favorite songs are here.

Going to the Mill – Chambers Brothers. This is for me, the epitome of call-and-response.
Oh, Happy Day – The Edwin Hawkins Singers, featuring Dorothy Combs Morrison. You may say this isn’t pop, but it went to #4 pop and #2 RB for two weeks in 1969.
Lay Down (Candles In The Rain) – Melanie with the Edwin Hawkins Singers. I seriously love this song.

Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Night and the Pips. In 1977, the Pips (minus Gladys) appeared on comedian Richard Pryor’s TV special that aired on NBC. They sang their normal backup verses for the song. During the parts where Gladys would sing, the camera panned on a lone-standing microphone.
A Girl Like You – Edwyn Collins. Note the response is instrumental, not vocal.
A Girl Like You – the Young Rascals.
Good Lovin’ – The Young Rascals, first recorded by Lemme B. Good.

Itchycoo Park  – Small Faces.
It Hurts To Be In Love  – Gene Pitney.

Come and Get Your Love – Redbone.
I’ll Take You There – The Staple Singers. I adore this song.
Mickey’s Monkey – Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Motown is chockablock with call and response.
Jocko Homo – Devo.
Loves Me Like a Rock – Paul Simon with the Dixie Hummingbirds. My favorite PS solo song.
Respect – QoS.

Shout – The Isley Brothers.
Twist and Shout – The Beatles.
My Sweet Lord  – George Harrison.
He’s So Fine  – The Chiffons. 
Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads.

Night Time Is the Right Time – Ray Charles.
I Don’t Need No Doctor – Humble Pie.
Haul Away Joe – the Longest Johns.
The Banana Boat Song (Day-O) – Harry Belafonte. Of course.

February rambling: Perseverance

Chick Corea

perseveranceShe counted ballots in a pandemic, and he killed two people. Guess who gets treated like a hero?

One county, worlds apart: Bridging the political divide.

Weekly Sift: Why You Can’t Understand Conservative Rhetoric

Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Fixing our Democracy.

Trust Is The Coin Of The Realm.” by the late former secretary of state George Schultz.

Detailed interactive map of the 2020 Election.

How 100 years of Democratic rule have shaped the city of Albany.

How I survived a Chinese ‘re-education’ camp for Uighurs.

Texas

Rick Perry and the Hard Libertarian Formulation.

How the Bush family turned off the lights.

El Paso Heeded the Warnings and Avoided a Winter Catastrophe.

Ted Cruz is feckless.

Perseverance needed

Fascist insurgency persists with the merging of QAnon, militia movements, white extremists. They spread new conspiracy Trump will be president again on March 4, so Trump’s D.C. hotel nearly triples its rates.

History Will Find Trump Guilty.

How the Proud Boys Pitch Themselves to People of Color.

Health  and wellness

COVID-19 Is Ravaging Local Newspapers, Making it Easier for Misinformation to Spread.

John Green: I Predicted the Pandemic (over and over and over again).

The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship

Second COVID-19 Shot Is a Rude Reawakening for Immune Cells. Side effects are just a sign that protection is kicking in as it should.

I’m getting good at this grief thing.

Tony Bennett’s Battle With Alzheimer’s

Embrace the nap

Assemblage

How to be a  genius

Bill Mahar gives the Baldy Award to policy wonk Henry Waxman.

17 years ago, Jason West, mayor of New Paltz, NY set the groundwork for the 2011 marriage equality law by presiding over same-sex marriages in his community.

“When in Doubt, Do Something.” Harry Chapin in Recent Media.

Jaquandor reviews the 1994 film What Happened Was… 

After GM poked fun of Norway in Super Bowl ad, Norway painfully hits back.

The Curse of the Buried Treasure

The Hollywood Con Queen Who Scammed Aspiring Stars Out of Hundreds of Thousands.

Missed: He flew to Paris to surprise his girlfriend. She flew to Edinburgh to surprise him

Larry Flynt paid me $1,000 to keep my clothes ON.

She traded her way from a bobby pin to a tiny house in 6 months.

JEOPARDY!

Alex Trebek’s family donates his wardrobe to charity.

Brayden Smith 

The guest host schedule.

Now I Know

Frederick Douglass  Is Not Amused. The Hunger Stones.  When Ziggy  Should Have Zagged. The Little Bit of Sun That Cost a Half-Million Dollars.  In the President’s Dog House.  The Search For Life on Earth.

Black History Month

Black Futures Month

Jacob Lawrence painted Black America for Black people — not the white gaze.

Jim Crow Filibuster

The history of overalls

Caste book supplement.

Lift Every Voice and Sing, A Celebration of African American Music – Sounds of St Olaf.

MUSIC

With God on Our Side – The Neville Brothers.

Who’s Yellen Now? – Dessa.

Marjorie Taylor Greene – Randy Rainbow.

I Won’t Dance -Willie Nelson ft. Diana Krall.

Tribute to Pops and Ella – Leonard Patton with Rebecca Jade.

Sixteen Tons – Geoff Castellucci.

Psychedelic Jazz Guitar – Boogaloo Joe Jones, 1967 album.

Sweet Blindness – The Fifth Dimension and Frank Sinatra.

A video analyzing in extreme detail Lady Gaga’s rendition of the national anthem at the inauguration. (ht/ch)

Coverville

1344: Cover Stories for Alicia Keys, Neil Diamond, and Phil Collins.

1345: Justin Timberlake Cover Story and Delvon Lamarr Interview. 

1346: Cover Stories for Gene Pitney and Feist. 

1347: Stone Roses Cover Story and the 50th Anniversary of Tapestry

Chick Corea

Obit and photo tribute and Remembrance and video link.

Play On: A Celebration of Music to Make Change

eclectic

Play On

As is often the case, I recorded a TV program only to watch it about a month later. Play On: A Celebration of the Power of Music to Make Change aired in mid-December 2020.

“Play On is a concert benefit for The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. (LDF) and WhyHunger, two charities fighting for the country’s most pressing issues: Racial justice, equity, and food insecurity.”

It was hosted by Kevin Bacon and Eve. There were other non-performers involved, including Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, Ringo Starr, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, most of these brief.

Recording these types of programming is actually the best way to watch them. One can fast-forward through the parts where the announcer intones, “Coming Up:” this one and that one. It happens during awards shows, which is why I record, say, the Academy Awards then start watching the DVR an hour later.

“SixDegrees.Org created the Play On Fund to amplify the work of both LDF and WhyHunger. You can learn more about their work at playonlive.org.” The artists played at shuttered venues across the country: the Troubador in Los Angeles, The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, and the Apollo in New York City.

The performers

American Reckoning – Bon Jovi. This is a song from the band’s 2020 album. It is actually the first Bon Jovi album I ever purchased. My wife requested it, and I gave it to her on Valentine’s Day.

Hold On – Yola with The Highwomen. I have a Highwomen album, but I was unfamiliar with Yola. Some promo I heard referred to her as the “gender-bending Yola,” as though that were the most important of her attributes.

Feed the Babies – Gary Clark Jr. I should buy his music.

Illegal Search – LL Cool J featuring DJ Z-Trip. He said he can’t believe he wrote the song 30 years ago, yet it’s still relevant.

Beware of Darkness -Sheryl Crow. Yes, the George Harrison song.

Justice/Get Up Stand Up  – Ziggy Marley and Andra Day.

Benefic – Machine Gun Kelly. Not my cuppa, but he has a lot of energy.

Better Than We Found It – Maren Morris. She said the song was inspired by becoming a new mother in March 2020.

People Get Ready – Sara Bareilles, Emily King, Jon Batiste, and Steve Jordan. Trading licks.

The whole thing.

Music: Fratres by composer Arvo Pärt

tintinnabuli

arvo partFratres means Brothers. It is a composition by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). The first time I heard this piece was very early this century. My wife and I were visiting a teacher friend of hers. This tune was playing on the stereo. I was fascinated.

Wikipedia says that Fratres exemplifies Pärt’s “tintinnabuli style of composition. It is three-part music, written in 1977, without fixed instrumentation and has been described as a ‘mesmerising set of variations on a six-bar theme combining frantic activity and sublime stillness that encapsulates Pärt’s observation that ‘the instant and eternity are struggling within us.'” Yes, “mesmerizing” is an accurate description.

Linus Åkesson writes: “The analytical meets the aesthetical as Pärt takes us on a meditative, harmonical journey, built up from a simple set of mathematical rules. Many people who listen to Fratres find it repetitive or even boring at first. After a while, though, they start to unconsciously recognize some of the patterns in the music.” I never found it boring.

The version I first heard I believe involved twelve cellos.
12 Cellists Of The Berlin Philharmonic.
Eight Cellos, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra

Then I heard this take, an adaptation for cello and electronics. It’s almost a different composition.
Hermine Horiot 
Lana Trotovsek on violin

Beats Antique, Violin, and Piano – Arvo Part Remix
Sheet music, violin, and piano

It turns out that many variations of this work exist, involving combinations of strings, percussion, recorders, piano, trombone, saxophone, and guitar. 
Saxophone soprano: José Pedro Gonçalinho

The composition has been used in at least a dozen films and documentaries, including There Will Be BloodTo The Wonder, and The Place Beyond the Pines.

Jazz pianist Aaron Parks incorporated elements of Fratres into his composition Harvesting Dance (2008), which has been performed by Terence Blanchard.

I love this arcane stuff

Jane Seymour turns 70

My wife had purchased a few bushels of apples over the late summer. She kept them in the basement, which tends to be cooler than the rest of the house. But by December, the last of the apples were looking wrinkled.

“They’re wisened,” I observed.  This led to a conversation about why the word has a short I rather than long I sound, though it has one S rather than two. Maybe because the long I sounds more like someone who is wise? I love arcane stuff like this, items that make me ponder.

Not a new decade

My friend David and I had a nice back-and-forth about whether the decade should start with 2021 since the century began with 2001. I favored the inconsistency. After all, September is the ninth month, not the seventh.

I think he was won over by how we define people. “An individual who has been alive for two full decades is referred to as being in their 20s for the next decade of their life, from age 20 to 29.” 

Census stuff

My Census buddy, also named David, and I exchange articles about the Census. Several of his finds I’ve used in various articles. I noted for him a Daily Kos report indicating that “the state-level population data from the 2020 census that is needed to determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state receives is not expected to be released until April 30, four months after the original deadline.”

Likewise, “the more granular population data needed for states to actually draw new districts won’t be released until at least after July 30, which is also a delay of at least four months from the original March 31 deadline. Consequently, these delays will create major disruptions for the upcoming 2020 round of congressional and legislative redistricting.

“New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice released an in-depth report in 2020 looking at which states have deadlines that are in conflict with a potentially delayed data release schedule and what the impact of a delay may be.

“The most directly affected states are New Jersey and Virginia, which are the only two states that are set to hold legislative elections statewide in 2021 and would normally redraw all of their legislative districts this year.”

I remain a Census geek.

Music and art

My friend and FantaCo colleague Rocco tipped me off about the book Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel (2015). It has a graphic that would have been on a Kitchen Sink Chronicles if FantaCo had ever published it back in the 1980s.

I had just purchased The Beatles (The White Album) [6 CD + Blu-ray]. So I gave him the three-CD set I bought a couple of years ago but didn’t need anymore.

We got into an arcane conversation about the album Graceland by Paul Simon. I had purchased the 25th Anniversary Edition (2011) CD a few years back. It also featured the Under African Skies film on DVD. I gave my old copy of the Graceland CD to a blogger buddy who had never heard it.

But Rocco had NOT purchased it, and I knew why. It was because it did NOT include the 6-minute version of Boy in the Bubble. Rocco had purchased the 12″ from the Music Shack record store back when it came out. I tried to get a copy but it never arrived. Rocco lent me his 12″ and I recorded the song on a cassette. But we BOTH were disappointed that the song failed to show up on the anniversary edition.

NOT the third wife of Henry VIII

The performer  Jane Seymour turns 70 today. I often note people who reach three score and ten in this blog. Though I’ve seen her in few guest appearances, a miniseries or two, and some infomercials I’ve come across, I really only know her from one thing. And if you know her for only one thing, it’s probably the same show: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. I didn’t watch it regularly, but I didn’t turn it off when I happened across it.

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